Japan hit by powerful earthquake

[Azull]

and to every road construction crew in the US, period

fixed

[Cantih]

fixed

I wouldn't go that far. After the 94 Northridge earthquake, crews got the collapsed bit of the 10 freeway fixed in a pretty decent timeframe.

[Silenka]

Ohio is probably one of the worst in terms of fixing shit on time (especially around the Cleveland area). Even small stretches of road take months to fix.

[vivid2012]

Ohio is probably one of the worst in terms of fixing shit on time (especially around the Cleveland area). Even small stretches of road take months to fix.

yup, true. timeconsuming!!

[richardd]

oh please. Florida makes Ohio look like Bel-Air in terms of reconstruction. i still drive by west palm beach and still find shit and roads still NOT fixed from hurricane katrina, wilma and all those wonderful moments that got me out of school for 2 weeks and let me play golden sun on gameboy advance and buy 200 dollar laptops from my friends who looted bestbuy lol. seriously, even on I-95 there are places in Dade County that are still not fixed from Hurricane Andrew, and that thing passed by when i was like 4 years old.

[Chun Liroy]

Woah woah woah, I think this title goes to NJ. They've been working on the same small strip of road near the entrance to my highschool (and small areas of widening up and down a 10mi stretch of road) since my sophmore year. I'm now a sophmore in college...

[Thunder]

NJ isn't that bad <_< some counties suck and others have nice roads. They do move slow(~2miles of new road from my house to my high school took them ~4 months, but they let traffic drive through it so I guess they had to work at weird hours/not often?), but you can't beat roads still not being fixed after a hurricane that happened 19 years ago lol.

The roads being good as new after looking like they did in Japan is incredible. Have to be impressed by their work ethic/culture for being so on top of this disaster.

[Olo401]

Got some major updates, but first I've got all you guys beat twice over. Back in CT there was this one bridge that collapsed during a flood in like 1981 - they started rebuilding it, then stopped for about 10 years, then out of the blue they tore down everything that had been rebuilt before and started over again. Eventually they completed the new bridge in my second year of college (1996-97). Then I move out here to RI in 2002, and there's a pair of bridges near me that had been closed and new temporary bridges put in place. From what I heard the temporary bridges were built like 20 years before I moved in. They didn't even start tearing down the old bridges until 2007 (after trying to SELL the intact bridges for a million bux each to whoever would buy & remove them WTF?!?!). They just completed the new bridges last year & tore down the temporary ones.. but now there's a new problem with severe flooding off one of the new bridges (even in minor storms) because they didn't put in proper storm drainage.

Anyways.. on to more important matters. Fukushima has now been upgraded to a Level 6 incident due to the continuing release of radioactivity and new confirmation that alpha & neutron radiation have been released (either from spent fuel reaction or from various containment failures). Soil contamination is starting to approach levels still recorded within Chernobyl's 50km exclusion zone.

- A crack in the primary containment is now suspected at Reactor #3 (caused by the earlier hydrogen explosion). Radioactive coolant water leaks within Reactor #3's turbine building have caused two workers to be hospitalized with radiation burns on their feet. Apparently they were not wearing protective boots. The exposure damage to the workers is expected to be about as severe as a sunburn.

[Kaslo]

NJ isn't that bad

I believe that statement is an oxymoron.

[Eleven19]

Woah woah woah, I think this title goes to NJ. They've been working on the same small strip of road near the entrance to my highschool (and small areas of widening up and down a 10mi stretch of road) since my sophmore year. I'm now a sophmore in college...

Seconded.

They're down to exit 6ish widening the turnpike now. They been doing that for years.

[Man0warr]

Texas roads are pretty well kept, probably the best in the nation. They put a lot of money into it though.

[Correction]

Need Kryssan back in here, tired of only getting info from mainstream news sources. Someone gimme a scientist.

[Eleven19]

CNN mentioned something earlier about some water someplace being radioactive and it burned through workers' shoes or something. I didn't catch the whole thing. Does anyone have reliable info on whether the situation is getting worse or better?

[Olo401]

CNN mentioned something earlier about some water someplace being radioactive and it burned through workers' shoes or something. I didn't catch the whole thing. Does anyone have reliable info on whether the situation is getting worse or better?

That was the thing I cited in my update earlier - a couple workers walked through radioactive water with just their tyvek suits on (no boots, just the insoles built into the suit).

From what I'm hearing the situation is actually getting worse. The seawater that was pumped into Reactor 1 has caused a pretty good salt crust to form on the surfaces in the core, and since salt is an insulating molecule it's caused the core temp to rise over 400°C. They've now started pumping fresh water in again now that the electric pumps work to try to wash the salt away & get things cool again, but the salt has also corroded the pumps so they've been seizing up.

[Yeyoking]

Soil contamination is starting to approach levels still recorded within Chernobyl's 50km exclusion zone.

Any news on the range of the soil contamination??

[Kryssan]

According to Kyodo, the three workers were subcontractors. Affiliated with TEPCO but not actual workers at the plant - they had been issued dosimetry but did not believe the alarms sounding from their devices were cause for 'alarm'.

Bad pun is bad.

The workers who were exposed though were at the Unit 3 turbine generator building.

Analysis of the water found in the bottom of the turbine generator building of Unit 1, which NISA has released a report of showing the concentrations of different isotopes found in it, has great considerable interest, at least to me.

The last one - La-140. Lanthanum. Why, hellooo to you, Lanthanum. Lanthanum-140 is the decay product of Barium-140, a photoneutron source found typically inside shutdown reactors providing the majority of the source neutron strength in a reactor from a day after shutdown to several weeks later (halflife's in the range of a few weeks).

I shouldn't need to explain what the finding of a photoneutron source outside of a reactor containment means. Do I?

IAEA's website has a good clear update regarding radiation/contamination levels of drinking water, sea water, food, and status of the reactor units. It's pretty clear cut so I don't really think I need to explain it further. Just going to crosspost the latest one in case noone has read it.

Also, NISA's latest update report includes some very nice detailed information of the reactors. Link here. Pay very special attention to the second link, it lays things out nice and simply.

IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Accident (25 March 2011, 15:30 UTC)
On Friday, 25 March 2011, Graham Andrew, Special Adviser to the IAEA Director General on Scientific and Technical Affairs, provided the following information on the current status of nuclear safety in Japan.

1. Current Situation

There has not been much change at the Fukushima Daiichi plant over the last 24 hours. Some positive trends are continuing, but there remain areas of uncertainty that are of serious concern.

Unit 1 is with offsite AC power to the lighting of its central control room and to some of its instrumentation. Unit 3 now also has lighting to its central control room, but not power to its instrumentation. It remains too early to evaluate how much instrumentation may effectively be recovered at Units 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Reactor pressure is decreasing at Unit 1 and so is seawater injection. On the other hand, pressure readings in the reactor pressure vessels remain unreliable in Unit 2 and have become unreliable in Unit 3.

The temperature at the feed-water nozzle of the reactor pressure vessel continues to decrease (to 205 °C) at Unit 1, and at Unit 3 (42.8 °C), and it remains stable at Unit 2 (105 °C).

The dose rates in the containment vessel and suppression chamber have continued to decrease at Unit 1, and remained stable at Unit 2.

At Unit 3, radiation exposure of three TEPCO subcontracting workers has been confirmed. They were working in the basement, with contaminated water on the floor. Two of them were transferred to hospital with contamination of their feet.

There are no significant developments to report at Unit 4, where water spraying continues.

Units 5 and 6 remain in comparatively good condition. Temperatures at both, which had risen when the cooling pumps were briefly shut down in order to switch to off-site power, temperatures have since been restored to lower levels, and both units are still in cold shutdown. For the same reasons, a brief rise in temperature also occurred at the Common Spent Fuel Pool on 24 March.

2. Radiation Monitoring

On-site radiation monitoring at the Daiichi NPP indicates that dose rates continue to decrease.

Deposition of radioactivity is monitored daily by Japanese authorities in all 47 prefectures. From 23 March to 24 March, additional deposition has been detected in 7 of the 47 prefectures. Considerable variations are observed, the deposition at this day ranged from 42 to 16,000 Becquerel per square metre for iodine-131; the highest value determined for caesium-137 was 210 Becquerel per square metre. For the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, the deposition of iodine-131 on this day increased by 13,000 Becquerel per square metre, and the caesium-137 deposition by 160 Becquerel per square metre.

As far as the marine environment is concerned, sampling of air and seawater continues to be carried out by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology (MEXT). Results are sent to the IAEA Monaco laboratory for assessment.

Measurements in the marine environment have been carried out 30 km off-shore and 330 metres from the discharge points on 23 March and repeated the next day. The results made available up to 25 March indicate concentrations of iodine-31 (some 80 becquerel/litre) and caesium-137 (about 26 becquerel/litre). This contamination is most likely due to atmospheric fallout rather than just ocean currents. Dilution in the ocean is expected to decrease rapidly this initial surface contamination. Caesium-137 will be more important over the long term owing to its half-life (30 years) compared to that of iodine-131 (8 days). Modelling of the dispersion of these radionuclides has been started, and the first results are becoming available. Marine dispersion will of course be much slower than atmospheric transport.

Since yesterday, additional data has been made available by the Japanese authorities concerning radionuclide concentrations in milk, vegetables and drinking water.

Levels of iodine-131 exceeded levels recommended by the Japanese authorities in five raw milk samples taken in Fukushima Prefecture, and exceeded levels of iodine-131 and cesium-137 in one vegetable (mizuna) sampled in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Monitoring of drinking water is on-going, iodine-131 in drinking water was detected in 13 prefectures, caesium-137 was detected in 6 of the 47 prefectures. During the period of 19 to 23 March, all results remained below the limits set by the Japanese government. However, permissible levels of iodine-131 were exceeded in drinking water samples taken in the Fukushima and Ibaraki Prefectures and in Tokyo from 17 to 23 March. More positively, the iodine-131 levels in drinking water for Tokyo are now below limits for consumption for infants recommended by the Japanese authorities and restrictions have been lifted.

As a result of food monitoring where contamination exceeded the levels recommended by the Japanese authorities, current restrictions on the distribution of milk are in place in 2 prefectures (Fukushima, Ibaraki) and on the distribution of certain vegetables in 4 prefectures (Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma). This regulatory approach is to prevent food contaminated with radioactivity above these limits entering the market and thereby, ensure the safety of foods. On 23 March, the Japanese authorities requested sampling of agricultural products in 6 neighbouring prefectures (Miyagi, Yamagata, Saitama, Chiba, Niigata and Nagano). This request for further food monitoring covers the same types of foods currently under restriction.

The joint FAO/IAEA food safety mission is currently travelling to Japan.

On 25th March, the IAEA radiation monitoring team made additional measurements at distances from 34 to 62 km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. At these locations, the dose rate ranged from 0.73 to 8.8 microsievert per hour. At the same locations, results of beta-gamma contamination measurements ranged from 0.07 to 0.96 Megabecquerel per square metre.

Director General Amano had a video conference today with the UN Secretary General and the Heads of a number of other UN system organizations concerning the accident. In addition, close coordination led by the IAEA through the Joint Radiation Emergency Management Plan of International Organizations (JPLAN) continues.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident Update (25 March, 15:45 UTC)
Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that on March 24, examinations of the thyroid glands in 66 children (14 of which are infants) were conducted near the evacuation area around the Fukushima nuclear plant. The exams were conducted at the Kawamata Town Health Center (40-50 kilometres from Fukushima Daiichi NPP) and Kawamata Town Yamakiya Branch Office (30-40 kilometres from Fukushima Daiichi NPP).

According to a 25 March 2011 Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency press release, the results of the examinations indicated that the dose rate "of all the 66 children including 14 infants from 1 to 6 years old had no big difference from the level of background and was at the level of no problem in light of the view of Nuclear Safety Commission."

Regarding developments at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, 'white smoke' was reported at Units 1, 2 and 4 from 21:20 UTC on 24 March. Sea water injection to Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 continues as of 23:00 UTC 24 March. The IAEA is seeking further information on the latest status of all Units and spent nuclear fuel at Fukushima Daiichi NPP.

Note the contamination level increase still being measured in Bq.

#Edit#

I'm not sure what Chernobyl's exclusion radius contamination reports are, but 0.9 MBq/m^2 is converted to around 250000 micro-micro-Ci/100 cm^2. 0.96 MBq/m^2 is not that much higher than the last post highest confirmation I made. Any nuke would tell you that's a lot, seeing as our limit is around 5000 micro-micro-Ci/100 cm^2. Still, that's micro-micro, in other words, pico. Our idea of 'a lot' is not 'dangerous/deadly'. It is difficult to clean up though, as Tagus mentioned once you start getting contamination at those levels cleanup becomes a bitch. An expensive bitch at that.

#Edit Again#

Inclusion of the Kyodo News report.

#Edit Again#

I wrote a document up a long time ago to explain nuclear power basics to friends, hopefully this snippit of it will help with understanding what I mean by photoneutrons.

Spoiler: show

http://www.aethernavale.net/Media/files/page1.JPG
http://www.aethernavale.net/Media/files/page2.JPG

Here's hoping my server can take all those views.

#Edit Again#

There was a prior report a day ago also that noted that there were 17 workers now that were confirmed to have exceeded a dose of 100mSv, but no worker has gotten near the 250 mSv limit yet.

[*Shinzon*]

Interesting again, quality posts as usual.

[chiyio]

quality post indeed. this thread is my main news source on the earthquake largely because of Kryssan's awesomely informative posts.

[Chicomagiko]

So... I guess my breakfast in Shinjuku for next Tues is canceled :/

[lovehatehero]

Ohio is probably one of the worst in terms of fixing shit on time (especially around the Cleveland area). Even small stretches of road take months to fix.

Oh jesus yes, RT2 has been under contruction since i was a kid...that and between 271 and 90 ive had enough to last a life time..